With 15 more species of bird to find to make my target of 175, I headed over to the Forest of Dean to look for a summer migrant - a spotted flycatcher. They arrive later than the pied flycatcher and hadn't yet arrived on my last visit to the rspb Nagshead reserve in April. I left home slightly later than usual as the weather forecast was for early rain, and I did drive through some showers, but the sun came out just as I arrived at the reserve.
My usual place to look for spotted flycatchers is at the Lower hide but a returning visitor told me he hadn't seen any flycatchers there but had seen a couple of male redstarts and a kingfisher. I did go and look but after waiting over an hour, I failed to spot one, although I did see a kingfisher and a jay. With rather cloudy and breezy weather, I questioned my decision to come as I was unsure if there would be sufficient insects around for the flycatcher anyway.
After a sudden heavy downpour, I returned to the car park and then walked the short distance to the Campbell hide where yesterday there had been reports of hawfinches feeding juveniles in front of the hide. I was told that yes the hawfinches had been present until twenty minutes ago and stayed for about twenty minutes. But I was also glad to hear that a spotted flycatcher was 'around' but rather flighty. After ascending the wooden steps into the hide, I found a place to sit and started to wait. It was quite overcast and there was nothing much around apart from a couple of blackbirds. Occasionally I caught sight of a little brown bird, but it was gone too quickly to identify. Later I saw a juvenile robin and a couple of song thrushes. A buzzard landed on a bare branch of a distant tree and a siskin pecked for insects from the surface of the edge of the pond, even continuing in the rain.
Another heavy shower ensued but after that the sun emerged and the forest was bathed in sunlight. Bird song seemed to increase and I thought I saw a brown bird fly out from a bush and return but I couldn't locate it. Later I noticed a bird drop to the floor then fly up, again remaining out of sight. It was rather frustrating as I was almost certain that it must be the flycatcher. Eventually I could just make it out between some branches - definitely a spotted flycatcher. Then all of a sudden it flew out and landed at the end of a broken branch and I could see it clearly and get a few record shots. It flew off and that was the last I saw of it as the rain returned. If the weather had been better I might have taken the 'short trail' around the woodland to see what else was about, but I was not keen to get caught in the rain!
I had also intended to visit another area of the Forest where it is sometimes possible to find small pearl bordered fritillaries but with the showers frequent and quite heavy I decided it wasn't butterfly weather!
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